Facet
At one time, Facet was a Paradigm City based group that was a serious contender as a threat to life and liberty. In the 1990's this team, gathered together and lead by the criminal Star Sapphire, gave the old Defender's League several runs for its money. But a series of defections, betrayals, and sheer bad luck drove the group underground where they stayed until Dire Invictus found them. After their retraining, Dire Invictus sent Facet to Europe to assist her with the Genocide Agenda's goal of world domination. As of 2016 Facet was rated by the United Nations as one of the "singular greatest threats to life, liberty, and happiness within the European Union. If not for the more powerful and organized Eurostar, Facet would be the number one threat to Europe's stability both economically and politically." History of Facet Facet first came to public attention in 1992, when the group set off a dozen bombs within Paradigm City, causing 634 deaths and 2,147 injuries. The attack was one of pure terrorism and happened without any sort of warning. While many Middle-Eastern terrorist organizations were quick to claim responsibility in an effort to jockey for attention the United States Secret Service and Department of Defense were shortly able to name the theretofore unknown criminal mastermind Star Sapphire as the individual responsible for the attack. Law Enforcement was immediately launched to arrest Star Sapphire and her agents--Diamondcutter, Opal, Amethyst, Garnet, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Moonstone, Topaz, Tourmaline, and Zircon--whom were operating under the name Facet. The FBI and DOD quickly found themselves in over their heads when agents of both organizations reported that the group were all meta-humans, and agents were slaughtered. The information and the murders caused The Defender's League to jump into the hunt. The League and Facet battled many times, both sides scoring victories and losses until Star Sapphire's micro-management of the team became too much for her cohorts to bear. Three Facet agents openly defected and became superheroes, three simply retired, and two Facet members simply got fed up with Star Sapphire and surrendered to law enforcement. Left with only three loyal cohorts, Star Sapphire and Facet went into hiding. Just after the successful deployment of the Extant Event Dire Invictus located Star Sapphire living quietly in Spain and requested a meeting. Intrigued, Sapphire and her three remaining followers Diamondcutter, Opal, and Zircon met with Invictus in Switzerland. Invictus laid out her plan for global conquest and used the Extant Event as the proof that she was capable of backing her words with action. She offered to retrain the team and replace those Facet agents that had been lost, if Facet would agree to act as her agents in Europe. The members of Facet discussed the proposition and, after obtaining the promise that they would be placed in charge of Europe when Dire Invictus' plans came to fruition, agreed to become a controlling body of The Genocide Agenda. Facet spent the next two years in intense physical and mental training, learning how to work as a team. Even Star Sapphire was given an intense education on how to properly lead and manage. Only when Dire Invictus felt that Facet was ready for the rigors of attempted rule did she allow the team to engage. Since that time Facet has committed a number of terrorist acts, killing thousands in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy. They have proven themselves more than a match for standard law enforcement agents. European superheroes have discovered that Facet is no longer a mediocre team but a powerful, concise, and extremely dangerous organization that does indeed pose a true threat to Europe. The Members of Facet Star Sapphire is the mastermind sitting on Facet's throne. Emily Johnson always lived in the shadow of her much more popular twin sister, Karen, and hated Karen for it. When Karen went on to become the beloved superhero Shockwave Emily boiled in the own emotional sludge of her jealousy and bitterness until circumstance favored her one fateful night in September. On that night Emily, a physicist working on experimental plasma generators for the United States military, was subjected to an accident that infused her with super-powers. Seeing the opportunity to ruin Shockwave Emily fashioned an identical costume and committed crimes in Shockwave's name, very nearly destroying the heroine's reputation. But good will out and Emily was finally confronted by Shockwave, defeated in battle, and arrested. Emily's name and powers became a matter of public record when she was convicted and she spent a year in Tranquility. After serving her sentence Emily immediately begin recruiting other up and coming meta-human criminals and bound them together under the name Facet. Adopting the costumed identity of Star Sapphire Emily lead Facet onto a series of terrorist acts until her group fell apart. Because of her exposure to plasma radiation, Star Sapphire is able to generate a concussive form of energy that she can utilize to create bursts and blasts as well as defensive shields. Her concussive blasts are strong enough to bring down a building, and she has learned how to direct them through solid surfaces to strike at foes behind cover or initiate surprise attacks from below. Whereas before she micro-managed her team to such an extreme that she was unbearable she has learned how to delegate authority, how to listen to her team's suggestions and complaints, and how to motivate and inspire. She is a military scientist with a tremendous grasp of tactics and warfare. Diamondcutter- Calvin Reynolds had been a loser all of his life. He was the skinny kid victimized by ridicule and bullying, he was the gangling chemist whom everyone hated in the lab, he was the guy who's entire social life consisted of watching TV as he ate standing up over the sink. But that changed when in an attempt to commit suicide he injected himself with what should have been a lethal cocktail of chemicals. Instead, his body ballooned with muscle, and he gained super-powers to boot. He had a relatively low key career criminal, taking revenge on the people that had made his life hell until he was found by Star Sapphire. Diamondcutter takes his name from his power to hurl long 'daggers' of a crystalline substance that can puncture up to eight inches of reinforced steel. He can use this substance to form weapons and shields as well as coat himself in an extremely durable armor. He also has superhuman strength and is able to lift and carry five tons of weight. Opal-- Opal's civilian name and background remain unknown, but it is evident from her striking good looks and first language that she is Spanish. Opal has the power to transmute light into powerful bursts of force. She can also use light energy to create strong force fields around herself and use the energy to fly and hover. Opal is absolutely merciless on the battlefield, killing indiscriminately. She loves to place innocent civilians in life-threatening situations and then attack heroes while the heroes are busy trying to save those people. Amethyst-- Marie LaBeau's vanity has always been her downfall. She walks through life with the belief that she is much more alluring and attractive than she is; where she sees flawless beauty others see mild attractiveness at best. Her vanity always gets her into trouble but ironically is what makes her so dangerous. When she is offended in any way, even imagined, she goes on the offense for revenge. Amethyst is an elemental manipulator. She can psychically command earth and stone to do her bidding: she blasts foes into the air, puts up walls, covers herself in dense stony armor, and all manner of specialized effects. Boosted by her power she becomes a juggernaut of super-human strength and damage resistance. Her vanity makes her easy to manipulate as well; her hair trigger temper can be mollified if she is complimented or flirted with by a handsome her. 'Garnet '-- Hans Reinhold has been angry all of his life. He is angry at being unable to express his sexuality as a teenager (he's gay), he's angry that his parents ignored him, he's angry about politics, America, and he's angry at life. That ceaseless rage manifests as fire. A pyrokinetic, Garnet can not only produce fire for a variety of effects he can also control it, causing it to leap and dance at his command. He can even extinguish the fires of other fire-using paranormals. 'Ruby '-- Alexa Minepanous is one of those rare mentalists that doesn't revel in having psychic abilities. She honestly truly hates them, but hates others more. In fact, this pretty young Grecian psychopath is so jealous of people without superpowers that she turns their brains into mush for no other crime. Ruby doesn't really like committing crimes even though she appreciates the spoils. She's a member of Facet more for a sense of belonging. With 'freaks' like herself to call friends and spend time with she's happy enough. She is romantically involved with Zircon. 'Sapphire '-- In a blindingly stark contrast to Ruby, the Albanian-born Edi Barisha absolutely loves being a notorious criminal, and he proves it by cheerfully killing anyone unfortunate enough to hold his attention. Sapphire doesn't have super-powers, but that doesn't make him any less dangerous than any other member of Facet. Barisha earned fame in Albania with his almost peerless mastery of the martial art of Krav Maga. He gets a thrill out of murdering people with his bare hands and if those people happen to be heroic martial artists so much the better! 'Emerald '-- Ingva Stargo grew up in a bleak and cold orphanage in Estonia. Even though she was an exceptionally beautiful child, she was never adopted because of how emotionally cold and disconnected she was. When she finally aged out of the orphanage, she paused to look back at the building where she had spent years being cold, hungry, beaten, and feared. She wished it destroyed, and responding to her call the winds whipped up and strokes of lightning fell, reducing the entire structure and the screaming children inside to ash. Emerald's power to control local weather patterns is what makes her so useful to Facet, even though her cold disposition still makes her an alien to her team mates. 'Moonstone '-- Melanie Charter grew up in a London that was to her boring and in desperate need of excitement. When her mutant powers surfaced she was beyond thrilled and set forth at once to create her own excitement by fighting bobbies, thumbing her nose at superheroes, and generally being a nuisance. Now that she is older, wiser, and more mature she has set her sights much higher, thinking of her future and retirement. Moonstone is a mutant with powers of ice and cold: she can generate freezing bursts of icy wind, hurl ice shards and form ice weapons, suffers no damage from ice or cold or frigid environments, and can encase people in ice. A long time hater of law enforcement, one of Moonstone's favorite pastimes is to encase police officers in ice and watch them simultaneously suffocate and freeze to death. If she's feeling particularly forgiving she'll just trap a limb in ice and keep it there until the victim suffers irreversible frost bite which will require the limb to be amputated. 'Topaz '-- "Run, Michelle. Run!" Michelle du Tienne spent his entire life hearing this from his track and field coach father in Paris, and run he did. He ran until he was breaking national records. He ran until he was faster than cars. He ran until he broke the sound barrier. Topaz is the speedster of Facet, and loves using his exemplary speed and reflexes against heroes. He alone of Facet truly abhores killing people; he simply will not do it himself. Star Sapphire doesn't mind so much; as long as Topaz keeps using his speed to further the overall team goals she is perfectly fine to let him be content to never personally take a life. 'Tourmaline '-- Tim Keller was not like the other boys in his home town of Bern, Switzerland. While they were playing on bicycles and flirting with girls Tim was trying to build robots and artificial intelligences. His genius followed him through high school and into college, where he steadfastly felt nothing but contempt for those of lesser intellects. So much so that he eventually came to understand that he, and he alone, had a God-given right to rule Switzerland. As Tourmaline, Keller wears a very advanced suit of power armor bristling with offensive and defensive capabilities. For now he is content to let Star Sapphire think she runs the show, and will promptly eliminate her for control when she has succeeding in conquering Europe. Like many megalomaniacs before him Keller is blind to the realization that Star Sapphire already knows his intent and is prepared to deal with it. 'Zircon '-- Michael James Earlington was the very first meta-human Star Sapphire ever recruited and has remained loyal to her ever since. He sees Star Sapphire as a partner, not a boss, and was easily able to overlook her furious rants, insults, and temper tantrums of the past. There are those whom say Zircon is in love with Star Sapphire but that's not true, he is very fond of her but their friendship is platonic. He's not the kind of man to fall in love with anyone, he just understands Star Sapphire like nobody else does. Zircon is the true tanker of Facet and is proud of his role. He is able to change the structure of his body at the cellular level to a glittering diamond-like material, which amplifies his strength to superhuman levels and gives him near-invulnerability: most physical attacks are little more than an annoyance and all forms of energy just bounce away harmlessly from his body. He takes a great deal of delight in collateral damage and fights with a large wrecking ball on a chain: why bother with taking out a hero alone when you can take out the hero, half a dozen spectators, ''and ''the building behind them all at the same time? Modus Operandi & Tactics Facet is truly the meaning of the word terrorist group. They never discuss their plans or targets openly or in such ways as such plans may be laid bare to agencies listening for them. They give no warnings of any kind. Once they've hatched out the plan they practice practice practice until every contingency has been accounted for. Then they get into place and execute the plan. Their deliberate care and practice has resulted in thousands of casualties across Europe. After the event Star Sapphire calmly waits for the authorities to discover the real culprits. Terrorist groups around the world like to claim credit, but when the law enforcement agent in charge of the investigation receives the team calling card: a black queen chess piece carved of diamond in multiple facets, does he then know who he is truly dealing with. Star Sapphire then acts, quietly issuing the same demand: Europe will surrender all economic control to Facet or the attacks will continue. So far, none of the countries of Europe have conceeded to Facet's demands. But with economies crumbling and people beginning to starve some governments are experiencing shaking foundations. Should even one country surrender to Facet it would send off a shockwave across the world. So far, when Facet targets extreme sites like the Colloseum or the Eiffle Tower superheroic intervention has always stopped the plan but hospitals, schools, and shopping malls across Europe are still vulnerable. Facet is content not to overacheive because Star Sapphire truly believes that one country, eventually, will conceed to her demands; which will cause a domino effect. In the event that Star Sapphire ever did gain economic control over Europe she would turn it over to Dire Invictus. Star Sapphire would be an idiot to not expect betrayal but she doesn't understand the true evil that she is dealing with; Dire Invictus really doesn't give a whit about who controls what and wouldn't betray Facet. When facing superheroes, Facet never goes in half-cocked. When they plan an event they will spend months, if necessary, watching local heroes to determine which heroes will respond to the event and then devise countermeasures to deal with those heroes. This studiousness on Facet's part has paid off, they've murdered eight superheroes since 2015. In Eurpose, Facet is considered the second most dangerous super-villain team and it's not a measure of vainglory. It's a measure of Facet truly earning that title and the fear that goes along with it. Category:Groups